


The Gam8lignant's Wwaltz

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 8loody pir8s, DualFang, F/M, bad drinking songs, drunken seagrifts, i'm not sorry at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dream bubbles are said to be made for second chances, and if those chances include good drinking and dancing, who are a couple of old seagrifts to pass that up?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gam8lignant's Wwaltz

**Author's Note:**

> This is a "first time flushed" fanfiction for my friend (who plays a totally awesome Mindfang). Usually I post these on my tumblr request blog, but it started out as half a page, then turned into five pages and two songs. Oh, and as for the Scottish Dualscars...I'm not sorry at all.

The dream bubbles are made for second chances.

 

 

At least that's what everyone you meet in this godforsaken bricolage of memories tells you. At first you pretended to scoff at them, disbelieving the words they spoke. A seadweller such as you had no need for regret: you lived for sweeps, you knew what it was like. But the time you have in the dream bubbles would wear on even the most stubborn gamblignant.

And the sweeps have managed to wear you down enough to return to this memory. You step out the door of a hive, and on to the gently rocking deck of the Caerulea. The weathered planks were as sturdy as you remembered (exactly as you remembered, if you stopped to think about it), your first flagship in her prime.

You cross the deck and lean on a railing, looking out over the ocean. The night is a calm one; the seas flat, the skies clear enough for stars, and the wind no stronger than a gentle breeze. Of course, it's all a memory, but sometimes the bubbles feel so damn real that you start to question yourself. Maybe you actually are alive; maybe the nightmarish hell of the Highblood's torture chamber was just that--a nightmare.

But then you look in the water, and your white eyes stare out at you. It's so easy to fill them in with violet, the color they ought to be, but you've learned to accept the white. Better than the bright red of missing sight, after all.

 

You know her the minute she sets foot on your ship. In times gone by, you would have turned to meet her, blade at the ready and bloodlust in your eyes. Now, you ignore her. This is your ship, your memory, and even if you have come here to meet her, this is her move.

"Time was you would've 8een on me in a heart8eat, Dualscar." Her tone is different; once upon a time your lack of a reaction would have given her cause to mock you ceaselessly. But she seems to have changed as much as you, and her voice is calm, relaxed, as if she's simply stating a fact. “How long has it 8een for you; a hundred sweeps?"

"I cannae remember." A lie. You can remember exactly how long you've been in this place. "And ye ought t’knoww better than I. Heard of my death, didn't ye? Wwrote it down in yer journal." You've been here longer than she has, had more time to think and remember and, although you would never admit it, watch the world you called home.

 

It’s her turn to ignore your dig, and she joins you at the railing. You glance at her out of the corner of your eye. She’s still dressed in that grandiose pirate coat of hers; cerulean trim standing out in the dark, but her hat is missing, and her hair curls over and around her shoulders. “Was this the ship I renamed for you?” Her blank eyes seem distant as she scans the horizon.

“Nae, that wwas the Corvvidae that ye got. Bloody wwell painted ovver the name in great, big, cerulean letters. Called it somethin idiotic, ‘Th’ Unholy Kraken’, took me half a day t’fix.” She snorts, and you chuckle in reply. “Awwful taste in names ye got, Mindfang.”

"8ite your damn tongue. My taste is impecca8le." Turning, she settles back against the rail and looks your ship over. "I don't 8elieve I've seen this one 8efore. What's her name?"

“The Caerulea. I helped t’design and build her…hell, she wwas my first ship.” Your grip tightens on the railing for a moment, old memories flooding back. “I saww the Condesce for the first time on this ship.” Mindfang looks over at you, but you hardly notice it, tied up in thought as you are. “I’d climbed the mast t’wwork on the riggin wwhen I saww her. Sprintin through the wwater, she wwas, couldn’t havve been much older than me.”

Heaving a sigh, you turn to look at her and her face is unreadable. “She looked up, and she smiled at me. And I swwore that I’d havve her, havve her smile.” Your fins droop down towards the deck and you hang your head slightly, ashamed of the folly of your youth. “I nevver lovved her. Only her powwer, the idea of her. God, I wwas such a fool…”

 

Her voice is soft, and the hand she clasps your shoulder with is steady and strong. “At least you admit it.” You look up at her, covering her hand with your own, and she smiles. “Tell me, what exactly is this memory of?”

Suddenly, you can’t meet her eyes as you flush a deep violet. Somewhere, out of sight, a fiddle strikes up a tune, and an concertina wheezes a harmony into life. Clapping and stamping follow shortly after, and your toes start tapping as you sheepishly grin up at her and reply, “Me wrigglin day. I’d just made ten swweeps, so the crew and I decided tae celebrate in traditional seagrift fashion.”

The roiling tune of “My Matesprit is a Greenblood” fills the ship. In the absence of musicians to keep it pinned down, the old seagrift song seems to seep into the very wood of the Caerulea. A sailor’s heart is his ship, and you can feel the urge to join the phantom dance rising up, but you are neither as young, nor as drunk as you were on that night.

Mindfang seems almost amused by your reaction. “Sounds like quite the memory.” Her voice drops slightly, almost becoming a low purr. “Now, Dualscar…”

“Aye?” Your tone is cautious. She has always been at her most dangerous when she’s like this.

“When the 8loody hell are you going to ask me to dance?”

 

You grin and sweep her into her arms, swinging her out onto the empty deck as you find the familiar movements. She laughs, and the sound makes your heart race as she matches time with you, spinning and twirling at just the right moments, and the two of you are in harmony, perfectly matched. The song comes to an end, and you bow to her. Smirking at your manners, she drops a curtsy, mangling it slightly in the process.

Another tune starts, and this time she takes the lead as you follow the quick pace of “Drunken Seagrift”. Before you know it, you’re kicking up your heels with your former kismesis in a manner you had never thought possible. The two of you collapse into a heap at the end of the dance, laughing, even, and it strikes you again—that awful feeling of knowing that you feel something more than pitch for her.

 

Embarrassed, you scramble to your feet, attempting to cover up the fact that you had been staring at her for just a little too long. Part of you is filled with a shallow dread, this memory is a _perfect_ replica, and you know what song is coming next.

She follows you up with a smirk, and for a moment, it seems as if she’s about to make some snide remark—and then the rich opening notes of a dance that every seagrift worth their salt would know fill the air.

“Oh, cawwbeasts.” You mutter under your breath. She gives you an arch look, then pauses, her eyes widening in recognition.

“I hadn’t realized that the 8lasted song was this old.” Your one-time (many-time) enemy settles into relaxed stance, all the coiled grace and deadliness as a predator at ease. Her face wipes itself clean of emotion, and it’s all you can do not to cringe the familiar notes of “The Gamblignant’s Waltz” flood the ship like so many miles of coastline in a storm.

The song is slower, and supposedly more stately than the usual seagrift song, intended to fit the second half of its title. Still, it was livelier and wilder than any highblood waltz done in so-called “polite” company.

The title itself had been a backhanded insult towards the non-seafaring highbloods of the court. For sweeps beyond your memory, they had insulted the seagrift’s dances, calling them little more than Gamblignant Waltzes. So one enterprising young troll had taken it upon himself to write the song, a song that had been preserved and handed down from ship to ship.

But it’s never been your style to let a chance such as this pass, and you sweep your cape back to offer her a low bow, one drilled into your head from years of formal functions. “Wwould ye do me the honor of joinin me for this dance, my lady?”

She studies you for a moment, then gives you an obeisance so graceful that you’re certain she faked the clumsiness earlier. “I would 8e honored, my lord.”

 

 

 

((art by [inamerica15](http://inamerica15.tumblr.com/post/50465202898/requested-by-scyth3g1rl-dream-bubbles-are-places)))

 

You’ll never be entirely sure how you got out on the deck, leading her through the dance. If anyone asked, you would say you’d left the bottom of your thinkpan back with that elegant curtsy and that goddamn _voice_ of hers.

 

_There’s a seagrift shanty_  
 _That trolls all like to banty_  
 _Spe’shly when they're on_  
 _On the gin_  
 _Or the beer_  
 _If you’re by the docks now_  
 _They’ll see you off the port bow_  
 _And into your hearts they all will strike fear_

“You’ve 8loody well 8een holding out on me!” She laughs as you spin her, faster than is strictly necessary for a standard waltz, but this is no normal dance, and you two are the most fearsome seagrifts that ever sailed.

 

_Gamblignants! Gamblignants!_  
 _That's how it goes,_  
 _Gamblignants! Gamblignants!_  
 _Ev'ryone knows._

“I havve tae keep _some_ secrets, m’dear!” The two of you are fairly flying across the deck now, barely touching down before you’re off again.

  
_High bloods all shake from their head to their toes_  
 _When they hear...Gamblignants!_

The song ends on a high note, and you give her another sweeping bow, your cape billowing rather nicely in the breeze. She manages a curtsy in reply, giving you a grin that ought to be considered illegal for the things it does to your head.

 

You’re not entirely sure how it happened, but the two of you find the good rum that you always hide away and settle down around the mast, laughing and drinking (and singing rather off-key).

 As the sun starts coming up, the two of you raise a toast to being dead and not caring about sunrise, then curl up under your cape and swap stories. Some of them might have been tall tales and drunken exaggerations, now that you come to think of it.

“An’ I swweaaar, it wwas THIS BIG!” Gesturing wildly, you attempt to show her exactly how big your first catch for Gl’bygolyb was, but you’re too drunk to keep your hands straight at this point.

“Hold stiiiiiiiill, I can’t see!” She reaches up for your hands, trying to stop the dizzying motion, and suddenly your heart leaps to your throat. For a moment, you feel as if you’ve been struck.

“Mindfang…” Her hair is still a mess from the dancing, all wild curls and tangled snarls, and her clothes are wrinkled and mussed. She’s never looked more glorious. Slowly, carefully, you reach out to cup her cheek, praying that you don’t send her running.

After a long moment, she covers your hand with her own, and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. “Dualscar.” She looks up at you, and suddenly she’s very, very close, and you’re not entirely sure what she’s about to do. “I’m starting to 8elieve that I don’t h8 you as much as I should.”

And then her eyes slip shut and she’s kissing you. You pull her into your arms, and she wraps hers around you, settling into your lap as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

 

 

The dream bubbles are made for second chances, and right now you’re more than glad that everything they told you was right.

**Author's Note:**

> Now with fanart, by the lovely inamerica15!  
> http://inamerica15.tumblr.com/post/50465202898/requested-by-scyth3g1rl-dream-bubbles-are-places
> 
> For those who are curious, the song is an unfinished, rewritten version of Oliver's "Oom Pah Pah" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkk2-2u3ciE)


End file.
